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Kamahl re-opens old Hey Hey wounds

Kamahl vs Hey Hey again? Is it really fair to be criticising shows from the past with a 2011 point of view?

Last night on A Current Affair, Kamahl revisited a complaint he levelled at Hey Hey it’s Saturday two years ago in which he complained about being the target of gags.

In 2009 following the now-infamous Jackson Jive “blackface” sketch, media turned to Kamahl for comment. Having been a regular on the show this made sense. At the time he said “Hey, Hey is devoid of any real wit. It’s desperate. It’s toilet humour and it should be flushed.” Ouch.

Last night Kamahl again took aim at Hey Hey and Daryl Somers for years of ethnic comedy.

“How can somebody treat a person with this sort of background like that? With such disrespect?” he said.

“They didn’t do it to John Farnham or any of the others. All of their favourites they put on a pedestal, with respect.”

But Molly Meldrum, who was the target of gay innuendo and Jackie MacDonald, who was subjected to repeated “folks are dumb where I come from” gags, may not agree.

Comedy in the 1970s and 1980s applied different rules we would never accept today. Whether it was Hey Hey, Are You Being Served?, Kingswood Country or The Comedy Company, it is easy to look back now and frown upon what we laughed at. In many ways, we’re embarrassed about what society accepted as a source of comic mirth.

But that was then and this is now.

Kamahl told ACA it was a catch 22, in order to promote his albums and tours he had to cop the gags.

“I wanted the exposure, but the quality of it was never what I had hoped for,” he said.

That exposure saw him beamed into lounge-rooms across the country when Hey Hey was a top-rating primetime show. Indeed, there are very possibly millions of Australians who are familiar with Kamahl principally because of Hey Hey -that has no doubt generated plenty of gigs ever since.

Hey Hey‘s real crime was in 2009 when it failed to realise we had moved on, reviving gags about blackface and the weight of Red Faces contestants. Its enthusiasm for nostalgia got in the way of contemporary thinking.

But it has apologised for this. Why are we revisiting it?

Last night host Daryl Somers gave ACA a statement that said, “I am very fond of Kamahl and have the greatest respect for him and always will. And I think this is all rather silly.”

Last night, Kamahl conceded his wife had told him he was biting the hand that feeds him.

ACA host Tracy Grimshaw even added, “It’s a shame. You just wish he had spoken up sooner.”

First rule of comedy: timing.

Updated.

30 Responses

  1. If Kamahl had been treated with respect and dignity, then that Would have been racism, because nobody else there was! Hey Hey took the mickey out of everyone, it was an equal opportunity offender. In fact, this almost smacks of Kamahl Still trading on Hey Hey for publicity purposes, just as he admits he did back in the day. Respect is earned, and he’s lost mine.

  2. Too many people in Australia are hyper sensitive and ultra thin skinned. My parents were from Europe and my siblings and I as kids were given a hard time by our peers because of our long and unusual surname, but we laughed along with them! We didn’t kick up a big fuss like Kamahl and others. If Hey hey was so bad, why did he appear on it? A tad hypocritical wouldn’t you say?

  3. I only saw half the interview.
    But here’s my 2 cents worth.
    I am disgusted that this kind of racism was ever deemed as funny!!!
    It’s part of this culture that I so dislike (& I was born here).
    I’m so glad that Kamahl has spoken up about this.
    It doesn’t matter when he spoke, the fact that he did, is the point!

    It was never anything but disrespectful & racist! It was never, ever funny!
    And the fact that some people can’t see that astounds me!!!

    I am a huge Kamahl fan.

    And for Daryl Somers to say in his statement that he found it a bit ‘silly’ absolutely astounds me!!! I used to be a fan!!! When they did that sketch on the reunion, they lost me forever!!!

    And for Tracy Grimshaw to comment at the end of the story, that maybe he should have spoken up earlier … put yourself in his shoes … and see how hard it must have been to speak up at all!!!

    Good on you, Kamahl!!!

  4. @Haydo – Totally agree with what you said about David’s article expressing how I felt about it at the time, too. And bloody angry that all the critics were adding fuel to a non-existent fire, grown out of an innocent segment on a well-loved show.

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